Fussball Geheime Staatspolizei

By alan ainsworth (legacy user)8/9/2014 16:04Mon Sep 8 16:04:33 2014In response to Re: Kingstonian

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I hesitate to make a statement along the lines of "It's not really the Law of the Land" - firstly because Oxford K isn't an idiot & secondly because some of the laws drafted purely for association football-related behaviour/situations are as comical as they're scary.
I'd imagine that K's don't open the stand because it's large enough to require significant levels of compulsory stewarding. Whether this is down to a specific and clearly defined piece of legislation is doubtful, though it may well be. It's probably down to FA regulations that are their interpretation of a club's duties under the 116 pages of toilet paper that constitutes the 1974 Health & Safety at Work Act... an interpretation that will have been arrived at as a result of expensive legal advice.
Practical considerations would suggest that stewarding requirements for a stand would be based on the capacity of the stand - or the area of the stand that's open. It might well be a case of things like fire exits having to be manned if they open the stand - ridiculous if there are going to be fifty people in it, but officially necessary.
It may actually be a law, it may not be, but failure to comply with it can see blazers in action.
Association Football, which may soon stand as the only legally acceptable Opium of the People, does have some daft regulations, designed to control the passions and emotions the Parasitocracy continues to channel into it. While behaviour that would see people arrested in any other environment is actively encouraged, many actions that wouldn't or oughtn't attract a glance in any other environment are criminal offences.
Take that guy sentenced last week for running on the pitch and booting the ball away at a free-kick in a WHU v. THFC game. Quite laughably, there was outrage in many quarters when the judge treated the incident as a joke, fined the bloke £300 and didn't issue a banning order. My attitude to that is, hoy the bugger out of the ground, take his name and leave any disciplinary action to the relevant club. The courts are sufficiently overworked as it is, without this sort of rubbish - which should be "civil" rubbish: minor trespass and nothing more - clogging them up.

Take this jolly fellow by way of contrast: the big lad in the green baseball cap, having a conversation with the linesman and attempting to reach the referee... before five stewards struggle to haul him to the touchline.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAQNqYc5KfE
This stushie was last weekend, in front of a 45,000 crowd in neutral Limerick for a Kerry v. Mayo Gaelic Football semi-final repaly. The grey-haired bloke in the black shirt is a member of the Mayo coaching staff and is entitled to be on the field, though he's not permitted to grab most of the opposition players by the throat in turn. The other unbibbed dramatis personae are fans.
What punishment do you reckon the big man got?
Er. None. Ushered back to his seat/terrace and that was the end of it.
"Entering the field of play" is not a specific offence, though there have been recent attempts to make it one - in the annual congress of the Gaelic Athletic Association, I should add; not in parliament by the ruddy government!
The bloke was buttonholed for pictures by fans of both teams in a burger joint after the game - sort of Wealdstone Raider deal - and, though there has been some disapproval, has generally been treated as a hero in Mayo. This in a sport where a dozen refs have been seriously f***ed-over in the last two or three years, though at lower levels than All-Ireland semi-finals.

As for Kingstonian, their stewards do tend towards the... er... "cuboid craniumed"... is that a cromulent phrase?... is it "racist"?... when it comes to discharging their duties.
The club should have been playing as AFC Kingston on a park pitch just after the turn of the Millennium. The Wombles saving their sorry ass was unfortunate. As the Wombles handing Kingsmeadow over to them would be unfortunate.
Personally, I reckon the NIMBYs in SW17 and the discordant elements on the council will thwart AFCW's plans for the Pissoir at the far end of Plough Lane. Who the hell wants a 30,000 capacity football ground at the end of their road?
Write to Boris or your MP now and urge him/her to support the redevelopment of London's only remaining Greyhound track. Brent Cross going up on the site - ish - of Hendon Stadium was bad enough, but to lose a track to that bunch of self-righteous.... Ahem!